Thursday, May 25, 2006

The Princess Has Lost Her Crown

Last night, the Prince and I were watching the Lost finale and I decided I would put some cookies in the oven for a nice snack. I scooped the pre-made batter onto the pan and then snuck a little bite of the dough. Then my tooth felt pokey on my tongue. I then realized that my crown was missing. The one that I just had installed less than two weeks ago!! I must have swallowed it. Pleasant thought.

Of course, I went back to watching Lost (how could I not), but I was fretting about it. I called and left a message on the "emergency" number of my dentist during another of the (many) commercial breaks. She never called back. Luckily, I was not in any pain, I just wanted to see if I could come in first thing in the morning to see her. But, still, why have an emergency number if you don't answer it or return the messages?

I had some trouble falling asleep, partly because of the adrenaline resulting from the whole fiasco and partly because I was worried that I might do something to the remaining part of the tooth while I slept (it was only a 3/4 crown). This morning I came to work as normal and proceeded to call the dentist office every 20 minutes until someone finally answered at about 7:45. The receptionist conferred with the dentist and said to come right over.

I didn't laugh. I think I was supposed to laugh. Truth is that I was pissed off. And tired. And hungry. (too afraid to eat anything)

She put in a new temporary crown and said they would order a replacement from the laboratory. When I was finished, I went to the desk to make an appointment for the return visit. The (other) receptionist apparently did not realize what had happened and thought I had lost the temporary crown. He stared at me (too long) with his mouth agape, so I snapped at him, "can we just make the appointment? I need to get back to work." I didn't realize that his computer wasn't booted up yet. Oops. He was still rude, anyway. And what do you except from a grouchy toothless woman?

As a result of this drama, I have had the Weird Al song "Toothless People" in my head all morning. It is off his "Polka Party" album, which, if I remember correctly, was the first ever cassette that I owned that was mine and mine alone!

5 Comments:

I have the same peeve about firms that take down emergency calls and then refuse to relay them to the appropriate parties. They merely act as screeners, but nobody realizes that. So, what did you think of the Lost finale? I stayed up to watch it too.